


Something

by Silverfox



Series: Both or Neither Scenes [9]
Category: Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 23:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfox/pseuds/Silverfox
Summary: Another reply to the Family Photo challenge. Gattler after the end of FOI.





	Something

Ever since he'd been chosen to go to the warrior academy at the age of fifteen Gattler had known that his main duty, his reason for existing was to ensure that his clan retained its noble status. And now it had all been in vain.

Not that he didn't agree that they deserved it. They deserved it three times over, in fact, but that didn't change the fact that all his efforts, everything he'd ever done had been for nothing.

It was quite true that by rights they never should have been granted noble status in the first place, but after so many centuries when nobody even remembered who their ancestors had been and exactly what crimes each of them had committed it had seemed only fair that their sentence should be forgotten as well. They certainly hadn't expected His Nastiness to drag up that old document after they'd been an established noble house for several generations and simply annul the title.

If they'd lost it as punishment for the extortionate prices they and house Goura had demanded for the food they produced and the War World so desperately needed, perhaps it wouldn't have hurt so much. He had always felt so terribly guilty over that, ever since he'd first arrived at the academy and seen how people lived here. At first he'd barely been able to make himself eat the food he'd been given used as he'd been to the best, freshest fruits right from the trees.

And then when he'd learned how much they paid for the awful stuff! Though it had taken him a while to realise just what money was actually worth since thanks to those same extortionate prices and the small size of his clan his pocket money had even then outstripped his current official wage as one of the most important commanders of the empire.

Every time one of his subordinates, friends or dorm mates had been in financial trouble he'd expected them to blame him. Some had, but most accepted that he didn't have much influence on business contracts made between the Afrare of Uthen and Goura before he'd even been born.

Still, he'd always felt they ought to blame him. He'd known it would have been the decent thing for Afrar Sesta to withdraw from the contract and he had told him so many times. Sesta had only shrugged him off and told him that he didn't understand business. Of course he'd never been trained for it, but those who had been hardly ever left Arthame. They didn't know, couldn't imagine, what life on the War World was like. They didn't have to watch people who were just as dear to them as family suffer.

Most of his dorm mates could affect their Afrare's decisions when a matter was truly important to them. When he thought of the way Razzle had bullied Afrar Thek into accepting Jesse's Outrider status, or into letting him bring home and adopt a common born street child that had never even heard of table manners, but was crawling with just about every sort of parasite one could imagine ...

He'd even thought of forming an alliance with Commander Mohawk on the matter and working on the Afrare of both houses to dissolve their contract unanimously, but unfortunately, or fortunately from Mohawk's perspective, the Goura Commander was too stupid to understand what setting food prices on Arthame had to do with poverty on the War World.

And then there had been the rebellion and Afrar Sesta had chosen the wrong side. This too Gattler had been against from the start, but his Afrar had chosen and he had bowed to his command. One did not fight against one's own clan. It was unthinkable!

But ah, Jesse, stubborn and ruthless as usual, had done the unthinkable, remained loyal to Nemesis and by doing so ensured an almost complete pardon for his clan. No punishment for House Artesz that could in any way negatively affect good, innocent Jesse. He'd have laughed if his own clan hadn't been in such a desperate situation.

If only Gattler had known he could have both saved his blood family and followed his heart.

That moment when he'd realised he'd really get a chance to execute Ettar's order to kill either Jesse or Razzle! He'd never have received that order, if he hadn't stupidly insisted on doing his duty to the clan!

Though how Ettar could have given that order in the first place he still didn't understand. Granted, Ettar had never been dorm mates with Jesse and he wasn't Razzle's best friend, but Razzle had been his dorm elder before he'd been stationed in the Sarei system. Razzle who thought of his dorm mates as brothers and sons, who watched over and helped them whenever they needed him! How could Ettar turn on him? Did it mean nothing to him? And if it didn't, why had he chosen Gattler as the one to kill his best friend? Was it possible he really didn't realise how much Gattler owed Razzle? Surely he must have remembered how close they'd always been, how Razzle had cared for him whenever he'd been sick, how he'd even suffered Nemesis' wrath in order to protect him!

How could Ettar ever have assumed that he would or even could obey that order? Of course when it actually came to that point he'd expected him to choose Jesse, not realising that he too had become part of his dorm-family, but they had never expected to find both in one place. Ettar had expected him to murder his best friend, the person that was closest to him in the world.

He couldn't get over that and yet Razzle expected them to share a dorm again as if nothing had happened. Just how he was going to do that Gattler didn't know. He couldn't imagine ever even remotely liking Ettar again - and gods damn it, Ettar being dorm mates with the two he'd ordered killed? It couldn't work out! How could any dorm mate ever trust him again? What had Razzle been thinking?

But then Gattler wasn't even sure he himself ought to return to the dorm in the first place. A commoner in a dorm full of nobles? Sure a commoner could rise to be a commander and then he had a right to a place in a commanders' dorm, but Gattler had earned his place in the army by his birthright as a noble and won all his promotions as one. Now that everybody knew he'd never really had that right was it decent to cling to the position he hadn't rightfully earned? And how would the others treat him now that he was no longer the equal they'd once thought him?

Maybe he'd better return to Arthame with the rest of his clan and try to establish a place for them as commoners. They'd probably need every pair of hands and what with all the chaos of the rebellion the children hadn't gotten sufficient medical attention. Perhaps one or two more would have survived, if only ...

And survived for what? What sort of life would they and their children have now? They had nothing left to maintain a clan for. Maybe it was time to just give in and stop trying to raise children despite the disease that had killed all his siblings, his children, so many of his cousins. It was heart wrenching to watch their desperate struggles to survive again and again until finally their little bodies gave out and they died after all. Wouldn't it be much more merciful to stop having children in the first place? Who cared if a random, useless common clan died out?

-You're not planning to just sit here all day, are you?- Jesse's voice interrupted his train of thought. -Because I promised Razzle not to leave you until he gets back and that might be several hours yet and I'm awfully bored.-

Brat.

-I've got some pictures of Una in the dorm, if you want to see.- Jesse offered after a moment.

-Una?- He hadn't even thought of her at all. Of course he'd never seen her ... or any pictures of her ... so she wasn't quite real to him. How could she be? An actual healthy baby out of two sick parents was ... well not impossible, but so rare you simply didn't expect it to happen to you.

-Yes, your daughter, remember? The one I deserted my post and flew all the way back here to protect from I still don't know what exactly. Now don't tell me I did all that for nothing and you don't even want her.-

An actual healthy daughter. If she'd been a boy she could have been the salvation of the clan, but then the clan didn't have anything left to be saved for anyway. But Gattler had Una, the miracle child.

-Of course I want her!-


End file.
